A lot of people as for my help to find a good deal on whatever is pressing in their life.  I really don’t have time to help everyone so I will usually refer them to a specific blog post that applies to their situation.  However, if you are a regular visitor to the site who comments frequently then I take that commitment to my site seriously.

Yesterday Tina commented on my post about wanting to find a  better price for the Westin Resort.  She had not been able to find a price better than $149 per night.  This particular hotel was the only one that would work due to its unique experience.  Originally I commented back with a better deal but I decided to take it a step further and show the process I go through to find my own travel deals.

I first went through my usual process of checking the travel sites.  Just pick a few they usually give you aproximately the same deal (if you are a looking for a specific hotel that is).  After looking at site after site I found Tina had done her due dilligence and I got the same price she did.

I then went to google typed in coupon codes and started looking for codes to the travel sites to try to get a discount through them.  I found codes for orbitz, hotels.com and cheap tickets.com .The discounts varried from 10%-15% off.  I thought I had found the deal I was looking for, BUT, I was wrong.  None of the sites allowed you to use the code with Westin Resorts.

I did notice you can use Ebates to get 3% cash back at a few of the travel sites.  So I thought at the very least you could use Ebates and then use a rewards card and get somewhere between 4% and 8% back.

Ultimately, I thought this was a cop out and should only be used as a last resort.  So I went looking for coupon codes for the Westin and Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which is their parent company.  Finally I hit pay dirt.  I stumbled upon a link that gets you 20% off the price on their site.   This price just happened to be $20 less than the travel sites.  So after the price drop and the 20% off the price came out to $103.20 per night a 31% savings.  If you use a good rewards card you could grab another $3-$5 and get that price below $100.

I hope seeing this process helps a lot of people find a better way to get travel costs down.